Anna.Mathews@timesgroup.com They seem to use everything in their arsenal to ‘discuss’ how women down the centuries were disadvantaged because of their gender. Singing about Hypatia, Lingamma, Kharboucha, Fanny Mendelson and other women from the 4th to the 21st centuries, the award-winning classically-trained singers, Pallavi M D and Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, mixed folk, suguma sangeetha, Rakshagana, Moroccan and English music and played 22 instruments during a compelling hour and half-long concert at Cabral Yard, on the sidelines of the Kochi Muziris Biennale. The musical concert, titled The Threshold, narrated nearly 20 stories, that the duo have been doing research on since they first collaborated over a year back and is a “breeding, growing piece”. Threshold came about when they had a month to prepare for a women’s music festival in Bengaluru. “We thought over what we wanted to explore and express through our music and we felt we could start looking at stories on gender and then, started digging out stories,” said Bindhumalini, who co-directed the music for Tamil film, Aruvi. “We read, researched; and shared composing duties. We just kept generating material and eventually the ensemble started taking shape. We felt that these are stories we need to tell.” The duo says Threshold, with its mix of styles, is a way to bring their varied experiences to the concert; while Bindumalini has trained in Hindustani and Carnatic, she has also toured widely with Sufi music, and Pallavi is an award-winning actor, sugama sangeetha singer and composer for theatre productions. It was also an opportunity to learn new things and also a search to find their own ways of expression. “It was like bringing in a kind of leveller to suggest that no music is high or low. People see us trained classical musicians, but we are willing to be vulnerable and do things even we don’t know about. Then it became a true sharing in the right spirit,” says Bindhumalini. The singers have enough material for a concert worth three hours; so they keep adding or removing stories. “The narrative looks at the journey from birth to enlightenment. A lot of the stories we have researched are in the periphery and as a performance, we are seeking to reach it to more people,” she notes. Pallavi says that when they were creating, composing and putting together the piece, they wondered whether they should have a band. “Then we realised it would be more precious if we kept it between us and support each other both musically and with our energies. It is a great sharing piece that we have created. It was created in a manner that one offers support and listens to the other. It is not a concert where we sing many songs, nor is it a theatrical piece. It has a lot of conversation, it has text, it has poetry and stories, and that is why we have called it a musical conversation.” Among the stories are those of 4th century Greek philosopher Hypatia who was dragged through the streets and killed. This is linked to the poem of Lingamma “where she talks about the lamp on the doorsill which sheds light within and outside”. There is the tale of Sule Sunkkavva, a prostitute, who talks about how she cannot default and the kinds of punishment she had to face. There is a debate on erotic text and how the content is different when written by a man and a woman, and how a man’s work is revered while a woman’s is banned. The bravery of Kharboucha, who led Moroccan peasants in a fight against the local administration and French colonial powers, is sung through her songs in Moroccan. Black American civil rights activist Nina Simone’s soulful songs also form part of the mix. What led their choice in the styles of music that is used for the stories presenting? “We tell stories from across the world, across the centuries… so mostly, the music is decided by the story,” points out Pallavi.

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